Flutterwave Acquires Open Banking Firm Mono

Flutterwave, Africa’s payments technology company, has acquired Mono, an open banking infrastructure provider operating across the continent, in a transaction that signals a deeper push toward interoperable, data-driven financial systems in African markets.

The acquisition positions open banking as a central component of Flutterwave’s long-term payments strategy, reflecting a broader shift away from card-based rails toward bank-led and authenticated payment methods. Mono’s API-driven platform provides secure access to financial data, identity verification, and account-to-account payments, capabilities that are increasingly critical as African financial ecosystems mature and place greater emphasis on trust, compliance, and data integrity.

Under the terms of the transaction, Mono will continue to operate independently, with no changes to its leadership, team, or day-to-day operations. Flutterwave’s stake is structured to enable strategic alignment rather than operational control, allowing Mono to maintain its existing innovation roadmap while contributing its open banking infrastructure to Flutterwave’s broader payments ecosystem.

Mono reports that it has facilitated over eight million bank account linkages, representing roughly 12 percent of Nigeria’s banked population. The company says it has also provided around 100 billion financial data points to lending firms and processed millions of dollars in direct bank payments. Its clients include Visa-backed Moniepoint and GIC-backed PalmPay, highlighting its significant presence in Africa’s rapidly expanding fintech sector.

The deal reflects growing recognition within the fintech sector that the next phase of payments growth in Africa will be driven by locally relevant, bank-based alternatives rather than traditional card networks. By integrating Mono’s open banking APIs, Flutterwave aims to strengthen its ability to support faster merchant onboarding, improved verification processes, reduced fraud, and seamless account-to-account payments. The collaboration also creates a pathway for expanding alternative payment methods, authenticated payment flows, and, over time, open banking-enabled stablecoin use cases.

Beyond product development, the acquisition carries wider implications for businesses, developers, and regulators. Enterprises gain access to infrastructure that simplifies compliance-intensive processes such as identity verification and bank authentication, while improving transaction reliability and conversion rates at scale. Developers and ecosystem partners benefit from a more unified environment in which payments and financial data coexist, reducing integration complexity and accelerating time to market. From a regulatory perspective, the integration supports greater standardisation, stronger data protection, and alignment with global security frameworks, including PCI-DSS and ISO 27001.

Commenting on the acquisition, Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola, Founder and CEO of Flutterwave, said, “This acquisition reflects how we think about the future of financial infrastructure in Africa. Payments, data, and trust cannot exist in silos. Open banking provides the connective tissue, and Mono has built critical infrastructure in this space. This acquisition allows us to expand what’s possible for businesses operating across African markets, while staying grounded in security, compliance, and local relevance.”

Abdulhamid Hassan, Founder and CEO of Mono, said the transaction builds on an existing relationship between the two companies. “We built Mono to unlock Africa’s Open Banking potential, and since our first partnership with Flutterwave in 2021 and working together over the years, we’ve seen the power of a coordinated effort towards this goal. Mono’s capabilities across financial data access, direct bank payments, and identity verification, combined with Flutterwave’s unmatched scale and global reach, create something more defensible and comprehensive. This acquisition allows us to build the infrastructure layer that powers the next generation of African fintech at the speed and scale the continent deserves.”

The acquisition comes at a time when Africa’s digital economy is increasingly demanding financial infrastructure that is open by design, interoperable, and built for trust, particularly as regulatory scrutiny and cross-border digital trade intensify across the continent.

Flutterwave did not disclose the value of the acquisition.